Engaging Marginalized Youth: Harnessing experience from the inREACH project

When a community project ends, such as inREACH, the street gang prevention project in Waterloo Region, it doesn’t really completely end. Sure, the office may be closed, the sign taken down, the telephones disconnected and the staff moved on to other jobs, but things have changed in the lives of youth, individuals and our community.

Even after a project ends, it is our responsibility to capture what worked well and what didn’t so we can continue to change ourselves, organizations, services, systems and ultimately our community to better engage & support marginalized youth in positive action and change.

It takes time to capture what’s been learned, how it applies, who continues the work and how we know it’s making a difference. That’s why we’re hosting:

“Engaging Marginalized Youth: Harnessing Experience from the inREACH Project”
Friday April 11, 2014
9am – 11am
Knox Presbyterian Church, 50 Erb Street West, Waterloo
Please Register if you plan to attend

To make the most of our time together that morning, we have prepared an advance blog series featuring 8 individuals who worked closely with inREACH; project staff, neighbourhoods, evaluators and community leaders. Their thoughts and reflections are sure to stimulate your ideas, – don’t hold back! – post comments and questions to the authors as the blogs are posted so we begin to think and talk about the issues now and can jump right in on April 11th.

Think of this blog series as the pre-game show, starting now.

At the event, it will be up to the community to determine and decide what actions we, the collective WE, can and must take to continue some of the work of engaging marginalized youth in our community.

Please comment, share, tweet, Facebook and reblog this series to help spread the word and share the learning.